


to fight them on their own terms

by RyanHollywood



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Eren throws down but also he throws off his clothes, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-28
Updated: 2018-03-28
Packaged: 2019-04-14 04:20:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14127936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RyanHollywood/pseuds/RyanHollywood
Summary: There are three things that Eren absolutely can't stand:1. Titans2. Jean3. Keeping his clothes on in a fightAnd it just so happened that all three of these things together make a very bad mix.





	to fight them on their own terms

**Author's Note:**

> This has been sitting in my drafts for a year now

Eren had barely even brought the glass of water to his lips when Jean suddenly prattled on about his love for the military police, as always. To anyone who was familiar with Jean's antics, it was painfully obvious thar he had watched Eren from afar just to speak at an opportune moment. Especially since it was that time of the month again. It was annoy Eren day.

"I just don't think it's worth it to risk your life outside of these walls," he drawled, head turned to Marco seated on his left, but eyes in slits as they honed in on Eren, two tables away. 

Eren set down the mug with slightly more force than necessary and dug into his meal with a spoon.

The moment Jean had uttered the first three words, Armin knew that he was a fisherman out to lure the deadliest fish of the day.

He shared a weary look with Mikasa who seemed to be rather disinterested in the situation as she regarded her food with an equal amount of apathy. Eren's temper wasn't lost on either of them. Hell, the entire 104th knew of it as it was revered among them. There just was nothing better to talk about when all you do is slice up the necks of wooden titans and peel potatoes all day, and it didn't exactly help that Eren's anger was one of the only sources of entertainment for those in the barracks that were familiarized with it when Eren first joined. And Jean happened to be happy to supply them with this entertainment as he equally enjoyed an aggressive Eren no matter how many punches he has to deal with. (It was still better than playing stick or hanging out at the D club with a bunch of heterosexual dudes)

Out of the corner of his eye, Armin saw Connie lean over to Sasha.

"This is the third time today that Jean's trying to get Jaegerbomb (TM) to explode, dude." Connie said instead of whispering, thus defeating the whole purpose of secrecy that came with leaning over to someone. "I'm starting to think he has the hots for him." 

"What do you mean?" Mina, who had been trying to hide the fact that she was listening in on the conversation, blinked.

"You mean you've never seen it?"

"Seen what?" Christa chimed in from behind him, leaning backwards in her chair, unabashedly and obviously having eavesdropped.

Connie and Sasha gasped. 

"Dudes, prepare to see the moon up close and personal." Connie dragged out the first word in excitement. Mina and Christa just blinked as they followed Connie's gaze towards Jean. 

Jean began babbling anew while gradually increasing the volume of his voice."I mean, seriously, Marco, what is it with those idiotic, foolish-" Armin nervously watched as Eren's grip on his spoon tightened with every word, "-dumb, risk-loving, suicidal bastards with their need to prove themselves by throwing themselves into the mouths of titans? I, for one --"

"What the fuck is your problem, Kirstein?!" 

Eren had finally stood up and made an aggressive step towards Jean who had stood up himself and half sneered half glared down his nose at Eren.

The entire barrack fell silent, waiting for the tension to break with bated breaths.

"You can't be that dense, Eren," Jean said, relentlessly adding more fuel into Eren's rage, "you are my fucking problem. You and all those other brainless buffoons who think they can go up against titans."

Something green flashed in Armin's periphery and he instinctively ducked before Eren's shirt could hit him in the face. Eren, now with less shirt on his body, had his fist reeled back, aimed squarely at Jean's nose, when Mikasa grabbed him from his waist and lifted him up like he weighed nothing.

"What the fuck! Let me down, Mikasa!" Eren protested, uselessly thrashing around as she carried him outside. 

Armin's gaze went from Jean, who looked deflated and disappointed, to Connie, who muttered something about a "next time, maybe" to Mina and Christa, and grabbed Eren's shirt as he followed them outside.

He found them right outside on the steps of the food barrack, a fuming Eren listening to Mikasa's motherly speech on her stance on fighting ("It's off limits") that they heard at least once a week.

"Whatever," was all Eren said on the matter. 'Whatever' had also become one of the most frequently used words of Eren's as he used it for the 30th time this year (it was April). Not that Armin had counted or anything. 

"Eren," Mikasa chastised as if the fact that Eren was Eren was reason enough to lecture him, "you can't go around picking fights with people, whether it's Jean or not. This sort of behavior has to stop right now."

Sixteen, Armin counted.

He knew Eren's hands were balled into fists before he turned to look at him.

"Stop babying me every time I do something you don't agree with!" He snapped. "You're not my mom nor are you my real sister!"

Forty-five.

The bickering went on for a while and ended when Armin absentmindedly handed over Eren's shirt to him, who had grabbed it and finally pulled it back on. They started walking to their sleeping quarters, Eren punctuating how tired he was with a yawn. Mikasa followed until she broke apart from the group to head to the girl's hut. 

"At least stop pulling off your clothes every time you get into fights," was the last thing they heard from Mikasa before Eren slammed the door shut.

Eren merely rolled his eyes and said nothing on the matter. Instead, he jumped into his bed, and dozed off almost instantly whilst Armin found himself dreading the next time Eren would get into another fight. 

 

~●~

 

When titans stormed the city of trost, Armin hadn't been a witness to the calamity for a second time, unlike Eren. Eren was at the top of the wall right when it happened while Armin had been assigned to fuel the gas tanks. The news traveled incredibly fast unlike last time and barely half an hour later, a soldier had stormed into Trost's military HQ with fear laced in his voice, breaking through the formal military exterior, as he delivered the news. 

Armin was barely comprehending the information when echos of screams forced themselves into the building and into Armin's ears. The chaos began just like Armin had been dreading for the past 5 years. The titans could be upon them at any minute, and the walls had proven once more that they were unreliable and as fragile as an egg that the titans could crack at any time.

"This cannot be," Armin breathed out, distantly remembering that he was in the middle of doing something important. His mind was racing.

'Mikasa and Eren might be dead', was the startling realization he had.'We were never meant to survive. The titans had backed humanity into a corner. They could kill as whenever they wanted to. We were never safe from them. Humanity is doomed. were all gonna die, were all gonna d-'

"Armin! Armin, get it together!" A warm, but insistent presence on his shoulder shook the life back into his body.

"Y-yeah, I'm fine," Armin replied numbly to an unspoken question, realizing that he was covered in sweat and that his hands were hurting from gripping the gas tanks too tightly. He willed his hands to loosen up, thankful that his body returned back to functioning. He then turned his head to acknowledge the presence his friends Mikasa and Eren, and Eren…

"Why is your shirt ripped?" Armin asked, eyebrows pulled together in a frown. 

Mikasa's disdainful expression wandered over to Eren who didn't seem phased at all by the change of mood.

"I had a run-in with the Colossal Titan!" He answered as if that would explain everything.

"Eren… did you take your clothes off when you faced the Colossal Titan?" Armin asked, bewildered.

"What does it matter!" Eren huffed looking thoroughly disgruntled. "What matters is that you were right, he does have a higher level of intelligence than all the other titans!"

For some reason Armin's brain refused to register the second part of what Eren uttered as it conflicted with his current confusions about his appearance.

He looked from Eren's face to his ripped shirt, eyes trailing over the ripped cotton cloth and the disheveled strings that lost their function of keeping anything together. Marks of where Eren pulled apart his shirt where dragging down the front of the shirt like claw marks, and it hurt to look at it, and Armin just-

"Fucking hell, Eren, how did you find the time to tear off your clothes when you were inches away from death!" Armin burst out, annoyance in his voice, catching Eren off guard. "You could have died!"

Mikasa's gaze darkened, her spark of anger ignited with those words and she snapped her head to Eren. 

"He's right Eren. What did I tell you about keeping your clothes on?"

The problem with the chastising was that Eren typically responded to any aggressive stimulus with anger and it just so happened that said answer was drenched in it.

Eren tugged at his shirt as he angrily replied, "Look! I don't understand what the deal is with you guys and my clothing. We're wasting so much time when Trost is literally being attacked by titans as we speak! And besides," he added with another tug on his shirt, "I couldn't get the damn thing off when the 3DM gear was in the way. Next time I'm just gonna cut it off."

He flinched back when his response ellicited a vehement "No!" From both Armin and Mikasa, but before they could delve deeper into this argument, a superior officer called for assembly of the troops and they hurried to the yard before they'd be threatened with punishment for disobeying orders.

 

~●~

 

Standing in position and awaiting orders on the rooftops, Armin, along with Eren, Mina, Thomas and two others of their trainee regiment were making conversation to rid themselves of the nervosity and dread of facing off with the titans. 

So far, there were less monsters on sight and more squads patroling and relaying information, which meant Armin's squad was on stand-by as of now, but that didn't mean that they shouldn't stay vigilant. One wrong move and they could be surrounded by titans.

Although. He guessed he should leave the vigilance to the others, because he found that the task of keeping an eye on Eren, whose shirt was still hanging off of him like a sack, was more important right now. 

There was neither time to change nor substitute clothing given out by the military before their deployment. But even if they had the resources, Eren sure as hell wouldn't change just to try and rip those clothes off too. He may be an idiot, but he was a smart idiot.

On top of that, while Eren had promised Mikasa not to die, Armin had promised her the same thing AND to keep an eye on him as well as the stupid decisions he makes at the worst of moments. 

"Move out!" Armin whirled around and acknowledged the order with a "yes sir!" However as soon as he turned back to Eren, the latter had already thrown off his jacket and shirt and was now in the middle of removing his pants with a knife he must have snuck with him while no one was looking.

"Oh dear," Mina breathed out - which was putting it very midly - and Armin's gaze snapped up to look at the rest of the squad whose eyes were the size of dinner plates as they stood there, frozen in the middle of reaching for their swords, and Armin knew that this was a fight that he had lost. A promise he couldn't keep.

When the zipper was pulled down, Armin sincerely hoped that Eren would at least keep his shorts on.

"Can you at least keep your shorts on?" Thomas asked weakly. 

"I don't wear shorts," came the clipped response and true to his word, the pants came off and his dong was free, visible to anyone in a radius of three kilometers. 

3DMG fully equipped with the straps wound around his partially naked body (he kept the boots) and the swords in his hands, Eren made quite the appearance. Thomas was about to faint.

It was nothing that Armin and the other boys of the 104th trainee squad hadn't seen, but this was not exactly the best time to fight naked, much less when your opponents are titans.

"So thats what Connie meant," Mina muttered as she got a good look at Eren's ass and Armin felt terribly sympathetic at her flustered tone of voice.

"It's been 5 years since the titans broke through wall Maria and now they've infiltrated Trost. But this time they will not make it through wall Rose so long as we can help it!" Eren declared, turning to regard the rest of his squad, who collectively groaned and averted their eyes.

"What's the matter? You think it's weird that I'm going to face them naked? The titans are naked too, and I won't hesitate to meet them on their own terms and come out alive!" 

There were varying levels of dismay that came out unintelligebly from most of the squad. 

"Let's go, Armin," he said and Armin reluctantly nodded. What can you even do at a situation like this? Move the fuck on to deal with the things that want to eat you, that's what. Almost in tandem, they took the triggers out of the holster and drove them into the blade ends, which they locked into place. The others reluctantly followed when both jumped off the roof with nothing holding them up except for the hooks and the gas bursting out of their canisters. 

Of course neither Armin nor Eren foresaw their squad's untimely end.

 

**Author's Note:**

> There would have been a second chapter to this, but I couldn't be arsed to finish it. If anyone's interested in the terribly written, terribly ooc notes for chapter 2 I might post them here


End file.
